Darkest Before Dawn
by that crazy girl always reading
Summary: REWRITE OF FIGHTING DREAMERS. A deranged UnSub is kidnapping young girls and torturing their older brothers right in front of them, then killing them both. What happens when Reid grows attached to the young, crippled sister of an officer and ends up getting mistaken for her brother? Reidcentric, somewhat OC-centric, but team is included.


**Okay... here we go.  
><strong>**Hey, everybody! It's Kari here, aka that crazy girl always reading.  
><strong>**As it happens, this story was already on this site under the title _Fighting Dreamers_, and believe me when I say that it was... well, not good, to say the least. However, having come back to this site after a long time of absence, I decided to give it another shot to shine, which, I admit, was mostly because I was not about to let the adorable relationship between Reid and a planned OC go to waste. Seriously. I'm a total sucker for interactions between Reid and kids. Especially when he's being all protective and older-brother-y (hint hint, wink wink).  
><strong>**I won't ask you to be gentle, or nice, or anything, because it's not like it's my first story ever. Be as harsh as you would be with anyone else. All I ask is A) You don't go all "OMG u suk i hate u" and B) You keep in mind that, though I have written before, I'm not a pro, and I don't have an editor or anything, although I'm a grammar nazi on my own.  
><strong>**In any case, I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

><p>"Big brothers... you know why they're born first? To protect the little ones that come after him."<br>-Ichigo Kurosaki

**Prologue  
><strong>**It Didn't Hurt**

There were no footsteps.

If, perhaps, there _had_ been footsteps-if some warning had cried out, "There's someone coming!"-then the two figures huddled together would have steeled themselves for an intrusion. Instead, bare feet silently crept down to the basement, fingers tightened slightly around the handle of a wooden baseball bat, and the rest of the world was none the wiser. No, a warning would have been too easy, and, at the moment, the universe was very clearly conspiring to make the situation as hard to diffuse as physically possible.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._ Other then the maddening sound of droplets of water splashing against the ground, the two were left in silence. Windowpanes gilded in fine frost lay high on the walls: too high to reach, but low enough to release a slow and uneven deluge of freshly-melted water. Each time a tiny _splash_ resounded, a whimper would accompany it, followed dutifully by an equally soft reassurance.

Eventually, a floorboard leaned under the weight placed onto it and was therefore obliged to shriek like a cat getting run over by a motorcycle. The already half-frozen, shivering figures instantaneously froze, one quickly bursting into tears and the other pressing his chin into the first's hair with a whispered "It's okay, shh..." Setting his face into the bravest glare he could manage, he fixated it on the door, ready for their captor and determined not to show any weakness.

Sure enough, the door slowly creaked open and sent a dancing shade of light into the otherwise undisturbed darkness of the room. Fake fluorescence fell onto the smooth cement floor and pushed against the rim of the shadows, creating an oasis of light. But there was no respite to be held there. If anything, it was a condemnation, bathing each crevice and assuring that there was nowhere to hide. Not that the two figures, blinking and squinting against the sudden brightness, had a place to hide anyway. The man stepped into his basement and smiled.

Their hands meshed together, leaning against the wall near a bed in the corner, were two children with dangerously pale skin and blue-tinted lips. One was a teenage boy of maybe sixteen years with unkempt brown hair, his wrists shackled together by handcuffs that were screwed firmly to the wall. The second was a redheaded little girl with only one chain enclosed around her right ankle, this one loose and giving her a long range of movement, even though it was connected to the bed. Her arms were wrapped around the boy as she clung to him more resolutely than a parasite, and her body was shaking as she buried her face into his already-waterlogged shirt. She couldn't have been older than 5 or 6.

Quick, sharp footsteps echoed as he crossed the room, no longer worried with keeping quiet. The boy shifted so that he was sitting up as straight as possible, intensifying his glare when the man didn't seem fazed. Said man stopped and surveyed the two: how the brother covered her body with his own; how the sister scrubbed rapidly at the tears streaming from her eyes. They both tried to put on a brave face, but neither were doing very well as the brother's glare weakened and he bit his lip, fear overshadowing the anger that once overshadowed fear.

The man glanced once more at the brother's stupid pretend "love" and felt rage begin to boil up, rising in his chest. He could tell some of the anger must have bled through to his face, for the girl began to cry harder and clutch the boy even tighter, her hands fisting in his shirt.

"Don't touch her," the brother begged after shushing the sister, both his eyes and his words pleading for his little sister to be left alone. "Hurt me, not her, please, I'm begging you!" He struggled once again against his restraints, staring pitifully at the merciless face hovering over him.

Finally, the man scowled in response and wrapped his fingers firmly around the little girl's shirt, prying her almost effortlessly from her brother despite how vehemently she held on. The girl screamed and kicked wildly as her older brother, hyperaware of her distress, immediately lurched forward, gallantly straining against the handcuffs and pushing all of his fear, anger and hope into his arms as he did so. "Stop!" he cried as she was deposited carefully onto the bed, where their captor had _expected _her to _stay_.

He was thwarted when the first blow hit him, eliciting a loud and pained grunt. It was powerful, fueled with anger that lingered behind it, and delivered with a baseball bat. Although it slammed his stomach and made his side scream, he kept that scream locked within his lungs, stifling it. He couldn't bear the thought of frightening his already petrified sister.

A rough kick flipped him over, his stomach pushing into the wall, and the next blow hit his back, which instantly arched as he quickly cut off a yell of pain. A sickening crack was heard and an even more sickening chuckle came from the attacker, who seemed to derive some amount of disgusting pleasure from what he was doing.

Eventually, he lost count of the blows hitting his stomach and back one after the other; never relenting. Though he felt copper in his mouth from his teeth in his lip, trying to keep himself silent, he felt his resolve weaken with each blow.

The following hit and the two after that in quick succession were aimed at his feet, making him finally forget his vow of silence and cry out loudly. His sister's sobbing and weeping weren't lost on him, but he couldn't comfort her; he was too occupied with the blows, coming faster now, to his arms, legs, back: whatever was practical.

Finally, he heard the bat clatter to the floor and gasped in relief, his breaths fast and rugged, tearing in his throat like shards of broken glass. His ease was short-lived, however, as a crackle and bout of searing pain alerted him to the figure's persistent presence. He screamed now, his days of merely yelling over as his body convulsed and thrashed against its restraints. He didn't know what it could possibly be-_taser? Cattle prod?_-but he found that he didn't want to know what could possible cause such an obscene burning and abhorrent stench. That was the stench of scorched flesh. How he knew that was beyond him. Maybe it was just intuition.

After a few of these, the figure stopped and he collapsed, eyes barely open and fluttering. The man observed him for several heart-pounding minutes of indecision, then slowly took out a knife and stabbed it into his leg as hard as he could. He yelped, not retaining enough energy to scream, as each stab went into a different place and he felt the blood dripping from him. His eyes squeezed shut, forcing out globules of saltwater one after another until rivulets were streaming down his face.

This was it.

He was going to die.

Finally, his eyes snapped open desperately, now bloodshot. They stayed fixed as well as they could on his sister, hoping beyond hope that the figure would forget about her now that he'd hurt him. It was a futile hope, however, as the man stepped back, his knife clattering to the ground, and turned to face her. He slowly climbed into the bed, hugging the little girl placatingly as her brother's blood boiled. He whispered that it was okay, that her brother didn't really care about her, to stop crying, but the girl kept on sobbing and screaming and shedding more tears in a second than the boy had in his whole life.

The figure slowly reached down, fingers grasping the back of her shirt collar and pulling her up gently and off of the bed. The brother's eyes, barely open still, drifted almost lazily from the figure to his sister. "No..." he slurred, forcing the word out past cracked lips, "no... leave her... alone... leave her alone..."

The figure let loose a loud roar and the boy yelped as he spun around and backhanded him, making his head loll. "Shut up!" he screamed, face reddening to a tomato-like hue. "Don't tell me what to do!" Another slap, even harder. "Don't pretend like you care!" A third slap, this one with a resounding crack as his head slammed against the wall. "Stop acting like you're in charge!" A fourth slap and the figure took a staggering step forward to make his final slap all the more painful. _"Stop acting like you're better than me!"_ One last slap, so hard that his head was flung to the side and a sickening snap could be heard.

Now hardly conscious, he forced his throbbing face to turn towards his sister, being held and "comforted" by the figure as she wept. "Ssh, ssh, it's okay, he'll be gone soon, don't let him scare you," he whispered, seemingly oblivious that the girl was scared for him, not of him. Truly delusional.

Slowly, the man hefted the girl up, making the boy snap to attention, eyes locked on his sister, hands twitching within their restraints. She was shaking and weeping weakly, trying in vain to pull away from the older person's grasp.

The figure placed a hand on her back and guided her over to a long table as she cried. When the chain reached its maximum length, the figure unlocked it and quickly swept her feet out from under her, making the girl yelp. "Ssh, ssh, it's okay," he soothed-or tried to sooth-as he placed her gently onto the table. Slowly, he pulled out a needle filled to the brim with an ominously clear liquid. The girl's watery eyes widened and she began to try to get up, but her efforts were rewarded only by sharp clicks as manacles were fastened around her wrists and ankles, effectively holding her in place.

"No," she cried, struggling against the manacles to no avail. "Please, no, please. I-I don't wanna die." The tone of her voice alone was enough to break a heart of steel and melt a heart of stone, but the killer paid it no mind.

"Don't worry," he tried again, only receiving more sobs in response as he stroked the girl's hair almost lovingly. "It'll all be over soon. I can help you. I'll clear your mind of the lies."

"Please," the girl whimpered, face contorting in terror as the tip of the needle ghosted over her arm. "Please, please don't."

"This won't hurt a bit." The killer ignored both her pleas and her brother's mix of begs for him let her and cries of rage, slowly sliding the needle into the crook of the little girl's elbow as she recoiled but was held in place. "Even if it's a lie, I don't care. We are always right," he whispered reverently, thumb readily resting on the plunger. "There was just no way I could forgive them. Hate each other and break apart. The jealous cat and the pig filled with hate. XX crashing into XX. The cat was thrown into the water."

Finally, the figure closed his eyes with a content smile as he slowly forced the plunger down, pushing the drug through the little girl's veins.

First the girl didn't feel any different besides the feel of horror that rushed through her. Then she slowly felt drowsiness take over her as her eyes drooped, fluttered and closed. Just before everything went black permanently, she felt words rush through her mind. _'He was right,'_ she had thought, relief, peace, grief and pain mixing together in her thoughts to form a chilling tone that would reverberate for long after her death. _'It didn't hurt.'_

The clock struck midnight.

_Dong. _No.

_Dong. _No.

_Dong._ She wasn't gone.

_Dong._ She couldn't be gone.

_Dong. _Hatred, hypocrisy.

_Dong._ Anger, agony, misery.

_Dong. _What's the meaning to anything?

_Dong. _There's no meaning to anything.

_Dong. _What's the sin of anything?

_Dong. _The sin of everything is

_Dong. _No.

_Dong._

"_NO!"_

The boy began to scream as soon as her eyes closed, and he didn't stop. There were no breaths; no brief pauses to choke out sobs. He just kept on screaming and screaming, tears coursing down his face with more force than any river. "No! Sis, no! _NO!_" he screamed through his broken sobs. _"PLEASE, NO! WAKE UP, SIS! PLEASE!"_

_"Shut up!"_ The figure roared, wheeling around and striking him across the face once again. His vision blurred and swung from side to side, nauseating the not-easily-nauseated boy to the point where he felt bile rise in his throat. At that moment, staring into the eyes of a deranged killer with various potentially fatal weapons, the boy knew he was going to die.

But... you know what?

He didn't care anymore.

Their captor hit him in the head as hard as possible with the baseball bat and his head snapped back with a _crack_ upon impact. He didn't utter so much as a gasp, his nerves having abandoned him along with any sense of emotion the minute his sister had closed her eyes. The man hit his head again, and again, and again until he were sure he was dead, until his pulse had long past faded to nothingness. Then he just stood there for a long moment, panting out heavy breaths.

Finally, the attacker straightened out and dropped the bat, turning back to the girl's body with a new air of calmness as he strolled over and gently stroked her hair. He'd underwent a total 180 since he had snapped at the boy, and he now smiled softly at the girl, so peaceful in death that she appeared as if only in slumber. His eyes turned sorrowful as he looked down and his smile became a sad, almost forced one.

Their captor-their _killer_-hugged her close and softly sang.

"Come, let us sing and let us dance. Paradichlorobenzene. Come, let us yell and let us shout. Paradichlorobenzene. The dog, the cat, the cow, the pig and everyone. Paradichlorobenzene. Come, let us go insane and let us sleep until we rot

_"Come."_

**Chapter End**

"Loving a sister is an unconditional narcissistic and complicated devotion that approximates a Mother's love."  
>-Roxanne Brown<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Phew... it's over. I just finished a chapter! ...er, prologue...!<br>****...yay!...  
><strong>**Okay, so please, please, PLEASE tell me what you think. There is a button for that... it says 'Post review' on it... Maybe you should click it...?  
><strong>**Oh, and, by the way, I don't own Criminal Minds. If I did, it wouldn't be half as good. And (MASSIVE SPOLIER ALERT FOR ZUGZWANG) Maeve would not have died.**

**With non-creepy author/reader love,  
><strong>**-Kari, that crazy girl always reading**


End file.
